Intelligent design is not science

I just came across a news item in which the Vatican praises a U.S. court ruling that rejects “intelligent design” theory as non-scientific. This is as it should be.

Science is that which can be derived from observation and experimentation, tested by peers and repeated again and again until proven wrong. The whole point of science is to show what is not true in the hope that by eliminating falsehoods, we move closer to the truth (in mathematics, this is known as reducio ad absurdum.

Intelligent design is not science, nor should it pretend to be. People can and should believe in what they want. For some people, faith is about religion, for others it’s something else. Make faith into something that can be demonstrated scientifically undermines the whole meaning of faith, it seems to me. It also demonstrates a lack of confidence in a belief system; a need to show others that what you believe is just as good if not better than what she believes.

This is exactly what the U.S. courts said and what the vatican has reiterated.

Science and faith are two seperate things. They can co-exist peacefully, and even successfully. They are not mutually exclusive. It’s we humans and our egocentric natures that color both science and faith in mutual exclusivity. Usually in the direction that best suits our own beliefs.